


we were the pretenders

by Anonymous



Series: Clowntown Kinkmeme Fills [8]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Blow Jobs, First Time, Hair-pulling, Hand Jobs, M/M, Massage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:26:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29827689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: He watches Richie twist again, the shift of muscle beneath his t-shirt, and then, possessed by some impulse he doesn’t want to examine too closely, says, “I could give you a massage, if you want.”Richie glances back at him, eyebrows jumping, then grins. “Does it come with a happy ending?”
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: Clowntown Kinkmeme Fills [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2164656
Comments: 11
Kudos: 225
Collections: Clowntown Kink Meme 2021





	we were the pretenders

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [clowntown2021](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/clowntown2021) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> After the fight with It Eddie notices Richie isn’t walking correctly, from ya know... falling from ten feet in the air onto straight rock. His back is totally fucked up.  
> Eddie offers to massage it & Richie accepts. After a bit Richie starts making pretty sexual sounds & Eddie makes it into a game, trying to make Richie moan.  
> He didn’t think it out bc now he’s sporting a pretty unwanted boner & he feels like a total creep. He tries to leave before Richie sees it, but of course Richie does.  
> One thing leads to another & then they bang.
> 
> *
> 
> (Title is from 'Human Touch' by Bruce Springsteen)

He’s kind of expecting Richie to be passed out by the time he gets out of the bathroom. None of them have gotten much sleep in the past forty-eight hours; if Eddie were even slightly less disgusting with greywater and leper vomit and dried blood, he would have conked out fully dressed on his bed. At least he didn’t have to try to shower in his own crime-scene of a bathroom.

The light is on in the bedroom when he steps out, and Richie is standing by the window in sweatpants and a thin, worn t-shirt that rides up slightly as he stretches his arms, then twists, wincing. He glances back as Eddie comes in, zipping up his toiletry bag. “Hey. Feeling better?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Rich.”

“Your room okay to sleep in?”

“Yeah, the window wasn’t broken or anything. They said they’ll send somebody up to clean everything in the morning, but—” he breaks off. Richie twists the other way, then stops and hisses through his teeth. “Are you okay?”

“Okay as I can be after falling ten feet onto a pile of rocks.”

“Right.” Eddie winces. The memory of Richie hanging in the air like a rag-doll, slack-faced and bleeding, will be haunting his nightmares for a while, he’s pretty sure. Somehow he didn’t even think of the more practical, mundane aspects of it. Richie was limping on the way back to the Town House, he remembers. He should have noticed before now. “Should we—it’s late, but the walk-in should still be open.”

“Nah, dude, I just want to sleep. Anyway, I’m just sore, I don’t think anything’s actually broken. I took some Tylenol, but it hasn’t kicked in yet.”

“Okay,” Eddie says. He watches Richie twist again, the shift of muscle beneath his t-shirt, and then, possessed by some impulse he doesn’t want to examine too closely, says, “I could give you a massage, if you want.”

Richie glances back at him, eyebrows jumping, then grins. “Does it come with a happy ending?”

“Oh my god, fuck you, forget about it,” Eddie sighs. “Thanks for letting me use your shower, I’ll just—”

“Actually,” Richie says, then stops. It might be the light, but he looks like he’s blushing. That’s enough to give Eddie pause. Richie fiddles with the hem of his shirt, then says, “If you were serious?”

“I was, yeah,” Eddie says, mouth suddenly dry.

“Then—yeah. If you’re sure you don’t mind.”

“If I minded, I wouldn’t have fucking offered.”

It comes out way more snappish than he means it to, but Richie just snorts. “God, I really missed you, Eds. Where do you want me?”

“Uh, the bed is probably easiest…”

Eddie trails off, bracing for another joke, but Richie just nods. He fingers the hem of his t-shirt again, then says, “Shirt on or off?”

“Off?” Eddie asks, then swallows when Richie hauls it off, wincing again as he lifts his shoulders.

Because he hurt his back. That’s why Eddie is doing this. _Focus._

He watches out of the corner of his eye as Richie drops his shirt on the edge of the bed and then flops facedown on the mattress, and then he goes to get the bottle of lotion out of the toiletry bag.

Richie has his eyes closed by the time he goes back to the bed, settling gingerly on the edge of the mattress. His glasses are off, folded on the nightstand, his hair a damp mess of curls on the pillow. Eddie looks at the sharp, half-familiar angles of his face and thinks, _I really missed you too_.

It feels like a truth too big for that phrasing, somehow, even though he didn’t remember Richie existed until two days ago. He pours lotion into his hand, rubbing it between his palms to warm it before settling his hand between Richie’s shoulder blades. Even so, Richie jumps slightly at the contact.

“Sorry,” Eddie murmurs. “Where does it hurt?”

“Fucking everywhere,” Richie mumbles into the pillow, and when Eddie kneads experimentally he can feel the muscle beneath his hands strung tight and knotted, twitching slightly in response to the pressure. “Ow, fuck.”

“Sorry,” Eddie says again, then digs his thumbs in hard.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Richie hisses, twisting like he’s trying to get away before going still, trembling. “Ow, fucking Jesus, you’re killing me here—”

“Just—” Eddie mutters, and brings his weight to bear down. He can feel it start to loosen a moment before Richie makes a thick, swallowed _guh_ sound in the back of his throat, and then goes lax.

“Ow,” he mumbles again, but it sounds like the opposite of pain.

“Okay?” Eddie asks.

“Yeah,” Richie mumbles, then groans when Eddie pushes his thumbs up toward the base of his neck, digging in enough to leave red marks. His skin is pale, dotted with freckles even this time of year, a fine dusting of dark hair in the hollow of his spine. He doesn’t really have the look of someone who works out regularly, but there’s muscle there all the same. Richie grew into his height early, but he was still a gangly sprout of a kid, all sharp unfinished angles, the last time Eddie saw him. He was tall back then, but not big. Not the way he is now.

Eddie traces the broad span of his shoulders, kneading the tenseness out of them, and feels his breath catch when Richie groans again, low and rough.

It would be easier if he were doing it on purpose. That, Eddie would know how to handle. Richie making exaggerated sex noises at the most inappropriate shit was the background hum of his adolescence, and he really wouldn’t put it past Richie to pull the same thing now, at age forty. He could deal with that. But this doesn’t seem to be intentional; what he can see of Richie’s face seems slack and dazed, and his breathing is slow, and he doesn’t even seem fully conscious of the low moan that drags out of him when Eddie pushes a knot out from under the wings of his shoulder blades and soothes it away.

He sounds like fucking porn. Eddie does the same thing on the other side to see if he’ll make that sound again. He does.

“Fuck,” he mumbles, the first time in several minutes that he’s indicated he’s actually awake. “You’re good at this shit, did you take a class or something?”

“ASMR videos,” Eddie says, and he’s aware that his own voice comes out a degree or two rougher than it should. “I watch them when I can’t sleep.”

“Huh,” Richie mumbles. “I always thought those were just for jerking off to.”

“You’re so fucking gross,” Eddie says. There is a problem arising here, very literally. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to will it away. “Who the fuck jerks off to ASMR videos?”

“I mean, me, obviously.” Richie is grinning sleepily, half-buried in the pillow. “Hate to break it to you, man, that’s not even close to the weirdest thing I’ve ever jerked off to.”

“I don’t want to know,” Eddie says, thumbing down Richie’s spine until he finds another knot just under his ribcage. He is very determinedly not thinking about Richie jerking off, Richie’s big hand moving fast and slick over his cock, and the noises he’d make. Whether they'd sound anything like the noises he's making now.

Okay, yeah. He is thinking about it. Especially when he digs his thumbs into the tense spot at the base of Richie’s spine, and Richie’s breath shudders out of him in another moan.

Eddie needs to get the fuck out of here. The sweatpants he’s wearing don’t conceal _anything_ , and the second Richie rolls over he’s going to see, and he’s going to know what a fucking creep Eddie is being about this.

Instead he says, “I’m going to try to crack your back, okay?”

“Sure,” Richie mumbles.

“Okay,” Eddie says, and settles one hand between Richie’s shoulder blades, the other on his ass just below his tailbone. Richie huffs out a breath but doesn’t say anything as he presses down. There’s a small pop. Eddie slides his hand up to the slightly safer territory of Richie’s lower back, then curls his other hand around his pelvic bone. Richie shudders, then sucks a breath in and holds it. “Breathe, dude.”

“I’m breathing, I’m—unh. _Fuck._ ” The last word comes out on a shocked groan as Eddie pulls up with one hand and presses down hard with the other. He can _feel_ the pop reverberate down Richie’s spine, the tense muscles going loose beneath his palm. Richie’s hips jerk, pushing down against the mattress, and his fingers curl against the pillowcase. The back of his neck is red.

 _Oh_ , Eddie thinks, dazed. He lets go of Richie’s hip, running his other hand lightly up his spine.

“Better?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Richie says thickly. He shudders again when Eddie glides his hand back down, then clears his throat and says, “Uh, yeah. Lots better, thanks, man.”

“Anytime,” Eddie says. He’s aware that this is the point where he should pull back, give Richie the space to drain the tension with a joke, and get the hell out of here. He doesn’t. He feels hypnotized by Richie’s body beneath his hands, his broad freckled back, the dip of his spine, the faint tremors still running through him.

He should stop. He doesn’t.

“Is this okay?” he asks, not even entirely sure what he means by _this._ He’s tipping over the edge of plausible deniability now, touching Richie like this, with no clear purpose but to touch him.

“Yeah,” Richie murmurs. “It’s okay.”

Eddie slides his hand back up, kneads gently at the nape of Richie’s neck where his damp hair curls, then pauses when Richie makes another noise, soft, halfway between a moan and a hum. It’s a tender, intimate little sound, and Eddie doesn’t know why that’s the thing that makes suddenly, fully aware of how far over the line he’s pushed this. Richie—is probably hard, he thinks, from how he’s been reacting, but that’s from the massage. That happens sometimes, or so he’s heard; it has nothing to do with Eddie.

Eddie has no excuse for the erection tenting out the front of his sweatpants and turning the inside of his underwear slick, nothing other than the feel of Richie’s skin and the sounds he keeps making and the sight of him laid out half-naked in the warm lamplight, and—yeah. This is way over the line.

“I’m gonna get going,” he says abruptly, and shoves himself back so quickly that he nearly falls off the edge of the bed. He yelps, and Richie rolls toward him, reaching out like he’s going to try to steady him. He freezes suddenly, his hand on Eddie’s knee, and Eddie knows that he’s seen everything from his quick intake of breath.

“Oh,” he says, sounding stunned.

Eddie squeezes his eyes shut, too mortified to move. “Look, I’m sorry, it’s just, you kept making those noises and—”

He stops, wincing, belatedly aware that he’s given even more humiliating context to an already humiliating situation.

“ _I_ kept—” Richie breaks off. “Jesus, Eds. Are you serious?”

“Can we please chalk this all up to stress and never speak of it again?” Eddie asks desperately.

“Is that what this is?” Richie asks. His eyes are wide—they always seem so wide without his glasses. He’s scanning Eddie’s face like he’s looking for something specific. Contrary to everything Eddie would have expected, he isn’t laughing. His hand is still on Eddie's knee. “Just stress?”

Eddie opens his mouth, then shuts it again. If he says yes, he knows Richie will let it go. He’ll let _Eddie_ go, and Eddie can go back to his room and his cold empty bed and jerk off alone to the memory of this. Whatever the fuck this is.

He lets out a slow breath, then makes the second most reckless decision he’s made in the past twenty years. If it weren’t for the fact that he attacked a Lovecraftian nightmare with a fence post a few hours ago, this would easily take the top spot.

“No,” he says, and meets Richie’s eyes. “No, that’s not why. I liked it. I liked hearing you. I wanted, I want—”

He breaks off again, but he can tell Richie gets it from the way his eyes widen. His hand flexes on Eddie’s knee, then moves up to rest heavy and warm on his thigh. It’s not really that intimate a touch, but as a statement of intent it is… pretty fucking clear. “This?”

Eddie lets his breath out all at once. “Yeah.”

Richie slides his hand up a little farther. Holy shit. Holy _shit_ , they’re actually going to do this.

“This okay?” he asks, voice rough. Eddie swallows hard, feels his throat click, and nods.

“Holy fuck, Eddie,” Richie murmurs. He keeps sliding his hand up, but it’s slow, like he’s expecting to get slapped away at any second. Eddie doesn’t slap it away. He doesn’t think he can move, barely feels like he’s breathing when Richie finally curls his fingers around his cock, stroking him through his sweatpants.

He closes his eyes, then opens them again. Richie is sprawled out on the mattress, half-naked, propped up on one elbow and turned enough on his side that Eddie can see his strong chest, the line of dark hair disappearing into the waistband of his sweatpants, the thick line of his cock pushing against the fabric. Richie’s fingers are stroking him, dragging the damp fabric of his underwear against his skin, and it already feels like a surreal wet-dream before Richie lets go of him to rub his hand up under Eddie’s t-shirt, then hooks his fingers under the waistband of his sweatpants and says, “If I offer to suck your dick, are you gonna beat me up?”

His tone is light, but there’s an edge to it that’s all familiar bravado.

“No,” Eddie rasps, and finally lets himself reach out, sliding his fingers through Richie’s damp curls, then over his jaw to finally settle against his lips. Richie glances up at him again, then presses a kiss to his fingertips, and it’s a small gesture—it’s such a small gesture, Richie _literally_ just had a hand on his dick, for fucksake—but it makes Eddie’s brain light up like it’s full of sparklers.

“No,” he says again. “I—I want that. If you want to.”

“I just want to make you feel good,” Richie says, and then ducks his head against Eddie’s knee, blushing, like _that_ was saying too much.

“Oh,” Eddie breathes. “Yeah. Yeah, please.”

“ _Please_ ,” Richie repeats, grinning, and leans up on his elbow to mouth at Eddie’s cock through his sweatpants, hot breath and the scrape of teeth blunted by the fabric. “So fucking polite, Spaghetti.”

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie manages, breathless, and then Richie hooks his fingers under the waistband of his sweats and tugs them down around his hips, freeing him to the cool air, and he doesn’t have any words left at all. Richie rubs a thumb over the head of his cock, smearing precome, then leans forward to lick it up with the flat of his tongue. Eddie’s hands find their way back into his hair, tightening involuntarily when he slides his lips over the head and sucks lightly. He feels as much as hears Richie’s groan. His hips jolt forward before he pulls back, wincing. “Sorry, sorry.”

“I don’t mind,” Richie says, pulling off to glance up at him, eyes gleaming with a familiar mischief that’s very fucking weird to see under these circumstances. “You can pull my hair, if you want. I like it.”

“Oh fuck,” Eddie says faintly, and slides his fingers back through Richie’s hair, tugging on it lightly as he slides back down. Richie moans around his cock again, then fumbles with the waistband of his own sweatpants, shoving his free hand inside. Eddie watches the muscles in his forearm flex and swallows hard.

Richie _likes_ this. He’s getting off on sucking Eddie’s dick. It’s a dizzying thought. He tightens his fingers in Richie’s hair, tugging more forcefully. Another moan drags out of Richie’s throat and his hips push forward like he’s fucking into his hand.

“Richie,” Eddie gasps, and tugs until he pulls off. His mouth is slick and reddened, and Eddie’s cock is wet with his spit, and it’s filthy and so hot that Eddie feels like he can’t fucking _breathe_. “Can you—I want to see you.”

“Huh?” Richie says, blinking heavy-lidded up at him. He follows Eddie’s gaze, then swallows visibly. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah, fucking really,” Eddie says, but it comes out too breathless to be properly venomous. “Please?”

There’s another moment of hesitation that he doesn’t quite get—almost gets, though, from how careful Richie has been about all this, how obvious it is that he’s done it before—and then Richie mutters, “Sure, whatever, I guess,” and shoves his sweatpants and boxers down in a single smooth motion before he fits his mouth over the head of Eddie’s cock again.

“Oh, god,” Eddie breathes, his hips shifting restlessly as Richie slides all the way down, swallowing him to the base. His face is flushed, his mouth and chin wet; his hand is moving fast on his own cock, which is red and leaking at the tip—god, he’s fucking _into_ this. Eddie watches his fingers slip over the head, dragging slick and shiny down the shaft of his dick as he thrusts into his own hand, a quick, almost brutal pace and feels like he’s going to vibrate apart into pieces from the feel of it and the sight of it. Then Richie makes another one of those low, filthy moans around his dick and he’s—gone, rocking helplessly into Richie’s mouth and clenching his fingers in Richie’s hair and coming so hard that the world goes bright and fizzy.

It takes him a moment to come back to himself, to let go of Richie’s hair and pet through it, apologetic, as Richie pulls off him. “Sorry, I’m sorry.”

His voice sounds wrecked.

Richie laughs breathlessly, rolling onto his back. His eyes are squeezed shut, his hand moving fast on his cock. “God, Eds. Don’t— _uh_ —don’t fuckin’ _apologize_ —”

“Okay, but can I—” Eddie starts to say, then shifts, sliding down the bed, reaching down to push Richie’s hand away and replace it with his own.

“Oh, fuck,” Richie breathes, sounding so shocked that Eddie almost jerks back, but then his hips roll tentatively, pushing his cock up into Eddie’s hand. Dizzy and fascinated, Eddie firms his grip, rubs his thumb over the head, strokes down. It’s not a novel sensation, not really, but he’s never touched another guy like this, never even let himself think about it before now.

He wants it, though. God, he wants it, he wants more of those swallowed noises that Richie keeps making, more of Richie’s skin beneath his hands, his flushed cheeks and his sweat-damp hair and his body trembling under Eddie’s touch.

“You look so good like this,” he murmurs, without quite even meaning to say it, speeding up his strokes and watching how it makes Richie shudder and gasp. “Richie, holy shit, you look so good, you’re so hot, what the _fuck_.”

“Are you fucking kidding,” Richie groans, half-laughing, and without thinking about it at all Eddie reaches out and tugs his hair. Not even that hard, but Richie reacts like he’s been shocked: hips juddering up, voice breaking on, “Eddie, Eddie, _fuck_ ,” as he starts to come.

Eddie strokes him through it, petting at his hair with his free hand, heart pounding in his throat. He thought this would gross him out—the messy physicality of it, if nothing else—but instead there’s a reckless, almost wild joy rising up in him. Like cannonballing into the quarry, like wrestling Richie in the hammock when they were kids. Like feeling wide awake and all the way alive for the first time in years.

He pulls back when Richie sucks a breath through his teeth like it’s starting to be too much. Pulls back and wipes his hand on Richie’s discarded t-shirt before tugging his pants back up. When he lifts his eyes, Richie is watching him with a wary look that turns halfway into a smile when Eddie holds out the t-shirt to him.

“What?” he asks, taking it. “You’re not gonna rush to the bathroom to do the full surgical scrub?”

“Later,” Eddie says, and watches as he scrubs himself clean and pulls his pants back on. He pitches the shirt over the end of the bed, then flops back onto the mattress and drags a hand through his hair, which is sticking up where Eddie was pulling at it. He chews his lip briefly and it occurs to Eddie, belatedly, that they haven’t even kissed.

He prods at that thought, but it doesn’t freak him out as much as he would have expected. He’d like to kiss Richie, if that’s something Richie wants. He’s not sure how to ask that, though, and the silence is getting more and more awkward by the moment.

Richie, of course, is the one to break it. He rubs at his jaw, then huffs laughter and says, “So, uh, hey, guess what: I’m gay.”

A snort escapes Eddie before he can stop it. He claps a hand over his mouth, but it’s too late; Richie is looking at him now, and there’s a glint of humor in his eyes. That triumphant look he always wore when he got Eddie to break. It hasn’t changed at all in twenty-five years.

“No shit, really?” Eddie manages, and flops onto the mattress next to him, laughing helplessly.

“Yep. Why, what gave it away?”

He’s grinning now, sharp and delighted, and it seems like the easiest thing in the world to close the distance between them and kiss him on the mouth. Richie makes a soft noise against his lips before he starts kissing back. His hand slides back to rest against Eddie’s jaw, carefully avoiding the stitches on his cheek, and Eddie thinks that he’s never been kissed like this. With this kind of eager tenderness.

Of course, Richie, being Richie, pulls back and then murmurs into the quiet space between them, “So that was a yes on the happy ending, I guess.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Eddie says, and smacks his shoulder, and yanks him back for another kiss, hard enough to make his injured cheek ache. Or maybe that’s his smile when he pulls back. “Hey. I think I might be gay, too.”

“You think so, huh?”

“ _Fuck_ you.”

“Maybe next time.” It’s teasing, but there’s a hint of promise to it that makes heat slice through Eddie. He thinks—yeah. He wants that.

“Yeah, okay. Next time,” he says, and has the satisfaction of seeing Richie’s eyes go wide before he rolls over to turn off the bedside lamp, throwing the room into darkness. “I’m staying here tonight, if that’s cool with you.”

“I… yeah,” Richie murmurs as Eddie curls against him. His arm lifts, hesitates, then settles lightly across Eddie’s hips. It's tentative, but he settles into it when Eddie doesn't pull away. “Yeah. It’s cool.”

“Good,” Eddie yawns. He tucks his head into the warm hollow of Richie’s shoulder and closes his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr, Twitter, and AO3 as glorious_spoon!
> 
> (PSA, kids, if you injure your back falling from a great height, please seek out actual medical attention instead of homoerotic massage XD)


End file.
